133,022
edits
Changes
Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
Revision as of 18:25, 6 November 2013
, 18:25, 6 November 2013no edit summary
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
{{newreview
|title=Tinder
|author=Sally Gardner
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sally Gardner has followed her wonderful and haunting [[Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner|Maggot Moon]] with another story about a world at war, but although death and violence abound once again, the atmosphere here is very different. This time we are not in some alternate nineteen fifties Britain where the bad guys have won, but instead in the eerie, mist-filled world of the fairy tale. In this place wonders and magic lead the hero to his destiny, and love, power and greed are the catalysts for both joy and despair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780621493</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Love, Nina
|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When I began reading this book I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it. I didn't quite know how to take the Nina from the title. She's a twenty year old Nanny, employed by the editor of the London Review of Books and living near Regent's Park in North London. The book contains her letters to her sister, Victoria living at home in Leicestershire, and tell of the events and happenings in her life as a Nanny and then, going on, in her life as a student at Thames Polytechnic. Initially it felt like she was name dropping - Alan Bennett lives over the road and drops in for dinner most days; the father of Will and Sam, the two boys she is nannying, is Stephen Frears; down the road lives Claire Tomalin and her partner Michael Frayn...and yet, given chance, you begin to see that she isn't awed by the notoriety of these people (indeed, she tells her sister that Alan Bennett was in Coronation Street!) and actually they are just the neighbours and so it is less important that Alan Bennett (AB as he's referred to in the book) comes around for dinner every night since he isn't there for fame value but rather for his own unique place in this rather crazy family life memoir!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922765</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Barbapapa's Voyage
|author=Annette Tison and Talus Taylor
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=In [[Barbapapa by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor|Barbapapa]], we were introduced to a friendly, pink, shape-shifting blob who used his special talents to help the local townsfolk, who hailed him as the new town hero. However, despite having lots of human friends, our pink protagonist is looking decidedly off-colour at the beginning of this sequel. It seems that being the only one of your species is a pretty lonely affair and poor Barbapapa is longing for a ''Barbamama'' to share his life with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408330725</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Fractured
|author=Dani Atkins
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Rachel is not living a life most people would covet. Her job is dull, she lives alone in a grotty flat, she has a scarred face that makes people stop and squirm, and she still hasn’t come to terms with the death of her best friend – who lost his life saving hers. She has to drag herself out of London and back to her hometown for the wedding of a close friend, and she goes so reluctantly because it’s the first time the whole gang will have been back together since the accident, five years ago. It’s really not a life to hold on to. Surely she’d rather anything else?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857113</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital Detox
|author=Gemini Adams
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Everywhere you look and question this book, it is a success – more or less. Does it do what it purports to – show evidence of a Facebook addiction and provide a dietary way out? Yes, more or less. Does it engage with its combination of cartoon images and captions? Yes, more or less. Does it have some cult Internet pedigree to make it a hit gift book for the techie? Yes, more or less – it might not have been borne from a webpage somewhere online, but the Kindle version was launched several months before the paperback. Is it then a worthwhile addition to your comedy book shelves? Yes – more or less.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095546563X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=Emil Tischbein has been given a great responsibility - to deliver 140 marks to his grandmother, who he is going to stay with on holiday. Pleased at being trusted with so much money by his widowed mother, the young boy is determined to keep it safe. But when he falls asleep on the train, he wakes up to find both the money, and the only other passenger in his carriage, a man who introduced himself as Max Grundeis, gone! Unwilling to involve the police for fear of arrest himself, as he thinks that he's wanted for painting the nose of a local monument, Emil stumbles on a ragtag bunch of children who offer to help him track down Herr Grundeis and get the money back.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572842</amazonuk>
}}
|summary=Nicole Oxford knew that her marriage was over when she discovered that Tom had been unfaithful - again. They'd seemed like the golden couple of television but that and their gorgeous home suddenly seemed as insubstantial as dust. Taking a break from work Nicole flew out to stay with her parents in Spain. Actually, they were her adoptive parents - and Nicole wondered if the bond between them all was going to be strong enough to stand the weight of what she was going to ask of them. Nicole had stopped liking herself and she felt that she needed to go back to her roots, discover who ''she'' was - and she wanted their help to trace her birth mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992711207</amazonuk>
}}